Journey to Surrender

Five tips for moving your marriage forward when disappointment strikes.

At times we all face bitter disappointments.

Marriage can be a place where disappointment leaves us shaken and feeling crushed. It may come from a decision your spouse has made or from something they  have done or failed to do.

Because true marital intimacy requires vulnerability and trust, it can also lead to deep disappointment.

But what do we do with the pain of the disappointment? How do we process through it in a way that leaves us stronger, more full of faith on the other side? How can we preserve the relationship when our spouse has inflicted disappointment on us?

My sister-in-law, Betty, works for Adventures in Missions, where she also writes a blog. I recently read a post she wrote regarding a workplace disappointment and immediately knew I had to re-post it here. The truths she shares so openly and sincerely below on how to deal with disappointment translate pretty directly into marriage.

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1.  I take responsibility for my own baggage and my own reactions

There are reasons why it hit me so hard that are not the responsibility of the people who caused the disappointment.  If it triggers past hurts – that’s not their responsibility.  It is mine.  Does it bring back old lies?  I’m the one who needs to battle that.  If it was going to fill a hole in my life and now that won’t happen – it’s not their responsibility to fill the holes in my life.  Does it injure my pride?  That’s my issue, not theirs.  Do I have an inappropriate sense of entitlement?  If so, it’s my responsibility to take care of that.

It is also my responsibility to treat all involved with respect.  And to extend grace to those making hard decisions.  And to not gossip.  Some of the reasons for this decision make sense.  Others are still confusing to me.  But I am responsible for my own actions in response. If I act poorly, I can’t blame it on how disappointed I was or whether it should have happened the way it did.

2.  I allow myself to grieve

I think it is okay to grieve as long as the grieving moves in the direction of healing and not in the direction of bitterness.  And as long as I don’t get stuck in it.  I won’t get to do something that was already a hope deferred, something I wanted to do months ago and was told I needed to wait.  Because of this opportunity, I had made the hard decision to pass up another one - and the one I hated to say “no” to is now too late to jump into.  So my summer has a huge hole in it.  And there are legitimate things to grieve.

3.  I decide if this is something appropriate to fight for, or to ask for reconsideration.

There may be times when it is right to ask questions, to advocate for a different outcome, to appropriately ask for reconsideration.  This was one of those times.  It does involve something I’ve poured my heart into, a dream I’ve had for years.  There are legitimate reasons to discuss the situation and there are reasonable questions to ask about the decision.  And I’ve now had those discussions.  In this case, nothing changed.

4.  I decide when and why to stop asking for reconsideration.

Along with deciding there’s a time to push a bit, to advocate a bit, to hope a bit that the decision might be reversed – there’s another question.  When is it time to stop?  And what are the right reasons to stop?  I think sometimes you stop because it’s not the most important battle to be fighting - i.e., you choose your battles.  Other times, I think you stop when you make the decision to just be a good sport about something that didn’t go your way.  And then there are times you stop because you choose to trust that the Lord holds your heart and your dreams and your coming in and your going out.

5.  I choose not to stay stuck in disappointment and to make choices that move me forward.

How do I do that in practical terms?  I need to talk to people who can help me through it – while being careful to not cross the line to gossip.  But they can only take me so far.  And while it is tempting to continue to rehash it in front of supportive friends, I’ll get stuck if I don’t move beyond that.

There’s internal work that only I can do.  I remember the big picture.  I go back to the things that give me perspective.  I run toward those things and not away from them.  It’s part of choosing to move through disappointment rather than stewing in it.  So I make sure I spend extra time with the Lord rather than finding excuses to avoid it.  I know that time with Him brings peace.  So my choices point to whether I desire peace or self-pity.

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Disappointment is never easy. When it comes from someone we are especially close to, like our spouse, it hurts even more. If you follow the tips above it will definitely keep you from getting stuck and allowing bitterness to take root. So if you are facing disappointment in your spouse or something they have done, reject the temptation to either strike back in anger or to simply push your pain down. Deal with it. Get past it. And come out of it on the other side with a better, stronger marriage.

Have your faced disappointment in your marriage? Do you have some additional tips on how you dealt with it? We'd love to hear. Leave a comment.

How does your own "marriage baggage" influence your thinking on roles in marriage?

It seems that few things spark a furor like the topic of male and female roles in marriage. I've read a lot of posts and comments on this topic, but I'm always amazed at the lack of grace shown on either side of the egalitarian vs. complementarian debate.

Many in the blogosphere hold strong positions  and vehemently defend them. I willingly admit that my own opinions are pretty firmly entrenched, and I'm sure there are times when I've lacked grace in my own writing. I am trying to change my ways.

I have to remind myself that we are (almost) all striving for the same goal: strong, intimate, passionate and enduring marriages. We are all just seeking what works best. That is a good thing! And it's a good thing to keep in mind as we debate the issue.

We All Have Marriage Baggage

A majority of those debating marriage roles write from their own personal experiences. The strongest opinions seem to be held by those with strongly negative experiences.

• A wife whose first husband was an abusive authoritarian dictator will often argue strongly for equality and against any form of authority. 
• A couple whose marriage was transformed from constant battle to peace and harmony through the path of submission and headship will sing the praises of such an arrangement. 
• A husband whose sexless, passionless marriage was saved when his wife decided to no longer refuse sex, will swear that "never say no again" is the only way to go. 
• A wife whose husband was "checked out" before embracing his role as a loving leader will champion the cause of strong leadership by husbands.

The same goes for what we observe first-hand in the marriages around us. The marriages of parents, family and friends will strongly influence our marriage paradigms.

• Those whose parents are happily married for 30-40-50 years in a "traditional" marriage, will often lean in that direction. 
• If your father was heavy-handed and uncaring in the exercise of his authority, chances are you'll swear that any form of authority (and therefore submission) is dangerous. 
• Have some friends whose marriage fell apart due to a husband who abused his wife or a wife who openly disrespected her husband? Those failed marriages will no doubt weigh into your marriage paradigm.

The bottom line is that most of us will form our opinions by what we have experienced as working (or not) in our own marriage(s) or what we've seen work (or not) in the marriages around us.

What Seems to Work?

So is the whole discussion of roles in marriage simply a matter of figuring out what you think/observe/experience works best in your own marriage? If it's not a question of sin (which I believe it is not), why not just "do what seems good?"

As right and practical and tempting as that seems, what do we do with what the Bible says about marriage?

Of course scripture requires interpretation and application. I believe it's important for us to wrestle with some big, important questions:

• What did God have in mind when he created the first marriage back in Eden? Does it matter today?
• What does it mean that he created us male and female and declared it "very good."
• What are the marital implications of the new covenant and grace?
• What do words like "head" and "submit" and "respect" and "love" mean in the Apostle Paul's instructions on marriage?

Ultimately we need to come to terms with what the only valid metaphor for marriage, Christ and the church, implies about God's design for marriages - marriages like yours and mine.

I'm convinced that God's heart is for marriage. It's a huge deal to him - big enough that he framed our time-bound existence with marriages as described in Genesis and in Revelation. Long before he sent Jesus to be our bridegroom, even before the dawn of time, he knew he would win for himself an eternal bride. So he set up marriage to be a picture of his loving pursuit of a bride of his own.

In the next few parts of this series, I plan to dig a bit deeper into the issue of male and female marriage roles. I will be talking about things like what it means to be masculine and feminine and why that matters. I'll be talking about how we've screwed up God's original intent and how our counter-reaction to that hasn't really fixed the problem. I'll dig into the data on some current marriage trends and tie that back to the topic at hand. We will look at scripture and parse some Greek.

Over the space of this occasional series we'll look at the topic from many different angles.

As I embark on this far-ranging series, I hope this post will serve as a reminder for us all to be aware of how your own marriage "baggage" influences our perspectives. We should be aware that to more or less of a degree we are all the product of our own experiences, good and bad. But our experiences don't necessarily dictate truth.

Regardless of our past, let's agree together to look afresh at what the Bible says about marriage, to wrestle again with the difficult questions about gender and marriage. It's worth the effort. It matters.